Get Invested with Eliza Owen: Is property suffering imposter syndrome?
00:00 I think almost one of the advantages that you get as being someone who is potentially underestimated in this space is that you're encouraged to work really hard. And I have put in a lot of hours. I've put in a lot of hard work. And in a way, even though you may have insecurities and imposter syndrome, which, by the way, is something that applies to both men and women. um if you have those insecurities i think for me i was inclined to work even harder to ensure that i was as well as well informed as i could be um memorizing keynotes before i got up to do them
00:41 so that you know i wasn't relying on notes um reading and researching widely not just about housing and economics, but about related fields like transport, urbanism, interior design, whatever. Just really going above and beyond to ensure that I could prove myself to people who had potentially underestimated my ability. Welcome to the Get Invested podcast, where we share great conversations with experts from all walks of life to uncover their secret know-how and where they invest their time, their skills and their money and the benefits that this has created. You see, the truth is that everyone invests.
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02:15 Thanks for listening, and now, let's get invested. Hi, Freedom Fighters. Have you ever felt inadequate or unqualified to be in a certain position, even though you worked hard to earn your spot? Have you ever felt that everyone around you knew what they were doing, but you didn't? Have you ever felt like your ideas or solutions just weren't good enough to share? Have you ever felt out of your depth or like a fraud and you've just guessed and or bullshitted your way through just to get through a situation?
02:57 Petrified that at any time someone's going to call you out? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then know that you're not alone. And how often do you question or doubt yourself? Do you find you're critical in a voice saying, what gives me the right to be here? Do you constantly feel that you have to prove yourself? That you don't feel good enough? Or feel that you're never going to be good enough?
03:29 How often do you worry about what other people think of you? Have you found yourself sitting in a room with others in your field and you feel inadequate? Have you been asked to talk in front of your peers and you question whether you're good enough? Do you feel like a fraud and scared that someone's going to catch you out? That you just don't deserve to be there? Do you sometimes feel internally that you don't know enough and not experienced enough or skilled enough to justify being where you are, yet you are there? Have you ever sat in a meeting and felt small, like you didn't belong there, as you listened to other people make seemingly smarter comments than you?
04:12 Again, that little voice inside your head is whispering desperately, what gives me the right to be here? Who am I to do this? Who am I to do that? What do I know? In those moments, you don't just feel you're lacking in the required skills and expertise. you start to wonder whether you belong there at all. At these times, you experience a sense of being thrown into the deep end of a pool and needing to learn to swim. But you're not just questioning whether you can survive and avoid drowning. In a more fundamental way, you're asking yourself,
04:48 am I even a swimmer? Now, many of us worry about not performing well enough at our jobs or not having as much knowledge and experience as our peers. we worry about what others think of us and whether we fit in or stand out amongst our friends or colleagues. Unfortunately, most of us have someone or something in our lives where we feel invalid and inadequate, resulting in a mental flood of self-doubt. Sometimes that someone is a parent, a partner, a work colleague, a total stranger or even a friend. Often, that someone is actually something, like an academic institution or a whole cultural
05:32 stereotype. And sadly, most of the time, we buy into this ourselves. Our inner self-talk is our own worst enemy. Now, while this is very common and to some degree normal, some of us worry in ways that are irrational. We worry about not being good enough when we have clear evidence to the contrary. We irrationally ignore this evidence and continue thinking we're falling behind everyone else. And why do I emphasise so much of all of this?
06:05 Because they're the thoughts and feelings that I've experienced throughout my life for as far back as I can remember, and I still experience on occasions. If you've ever felt like you don't belong, like your friends or colleagues are going to discover that you're a fraud and that you don't actually deserve your job or your accomplishments then join the club. These often irrational fears are part of something that has come to be almost trendily referred to as imposter syndrome
06:34 or what psychologists often call imposter phenomenon. So what is imposter syndrome? Does it exist? How do you know if you have it? What are the limitations and the benefits of it? And what, if anything, can and should you do about it? Imposter syndrome is the idea that you've only succeeded due to luck or hard work and not because of your talent or qualifications.
07:03 It was first identified way back in 1978 by psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes. Today, psychologist Audrey Irvin says imposter syndrome can apply to anyone who isn't able to internalise and own their successes. And proclaimed imposter syndrome expert Valerie Young has found five patterns and types of people who experience imposter feelings. She calls them perfectionists, experts, the natural genius, the soloists and the superman, superman or superwoman. Let's break them down to see where you fit.
07:43 Firstly, there are the perfectionists who set extremely high expectations for themselves and even if they meet 99% of their goals they're going to feel like failures. Any small mistake will make them question their own competence. Now I suffered this for years as an architect and I still have to bite down hard on this tendency. Luckily, my partner in all things, Sonia, is there to slap it out of me.
08:11 Secondly, there are the experts who feel the need to know every piece of information before they start a project and constantly look for new certifications or trainings to improve their skills. They won't apply for a job if they don't meet all of the criteria in the posting. They might be hesitant to ask a question or speak up at a meeting because they're afraid of looking stupid if they don't already know the answers. then there's the natural genius who has to struggle or work hard to accomplish something and he or she thinks this means they're not good enough they expect skills to come easily and when they have to put in effort their brain tells them that's proof that they're an imposter
08:52 then we have the soloists who feel that they have to accomplish tasks on their own if they need to ask for help they think that means that they're a failure or a fraud And lastly, the supermen or superwomen, who push themselves to work harder than those around them to prove that they're not imposters. They feel the need to succeed in all aspects of their life, at work, as parents, as partners, sport, you name it. They feel stressed when they're not accomplishing something.
09:22 For better or worse, I see a lot of these traits in myself. I secretly see myself wearing a cape and tights with my jocks on the outside. What about you? Do any of these ring a bell or resonate? According to Kendra Logan, imposter syndrome can simply be explained as self-doubt from persistently undervaluing your competence
09:47 and falsely attributing your accomplishments to luck or other external forces. Imposters don't experience an internal sense of success. They consider themselves constantly to be fakes and frauds. And feelings of inadequacy due to inexperience, feeling as though you haven't earned your position, or having the fear that you could be discovered as an imposter in your position are all quite common occurrences. A person who has imposter syndrome will often doubt their abilities and accomplishments, regardless of how successful they are. In fact, the more success they achieve, the more of an imposter they are likely to feel and they're waiting for someone to catch them out.
10:32 Their self-talk is, who am I to? What do I know? What right do I have to be here? Now to me, imposter syndrome sounds almost trendy, almost like an affliction that's worth having and wearing as a badge of honour. It can make the symptoms feel better and more acceptable than what they are actually presenting themselves as and it can make it sound better if you mention it to others, a bit like saying, I'm always busy. But there's a danger in naming something and putting it in a box. On the one hand, it can become a lame excuse for not doing anything about it.
11:13 Oh, I suffer from imposter syndrome, so there's nothing I can do. Another escape clause for the good old Aussie victim mentality. The other issue with calling these feelings imposter syndrome is that it immediately conjures up negative responses. And unfortunately, we live in a world where any form of pain or discomfort is to be avoided, masked, medicated or eliminated at all costs. It's almost like it's a disease that we need to cure and eradicate. But I seriously question if feeling inadequate or like an imposter is all bad.
11:50 I also question if we need to cure it, or perhaps just reframe it. I want you to ponder on this. We'll come back to this in a minute. So when does imposter syndrome occur? As Valerie Young says, it's normal to feel some degree of imposter feelings in a new environment. If there is some new transitional experience, a new career, a new promotion, it can trigger those feelings. But for those experiencing imposter phenomenon, Young says the cause seems to be setting expectations that are extremely and exceedingly high and unrealistic notions of what it means to be competent. Young also points out that imposter phenomenon stems from a struggle to accurately assess one's abilities.
12:38 But feeling incompetent, says Young, and being incompetent are very different things. Being able to accurately assess your skills and performance can make the difference between learning from a failure and avoiding future challenges entirely. When we start something new, we feel inadequate. We question whether or not we can do it. We start to doubt ourselves. and when we make little mistakes or don't quite understand something we say to ourselves, well look at this, I knew I couldn't do it. You start a negative internal dialogue that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy
13:15 and eventually you fail simply because you lost confidence and worse, you stop trying to do anything at all. If we adopted this attitude when we first started to walk or talk we'd still be rolling around on the floor sucking our thumbs in nappies. As we can see, people experiencing this imposterism often tend towards perfectionism, and I'm a classic case in point. Unhealthy perfectionism leads to unrealistic expectations that can't be met, as well as a constant fear of failure.
13:49 This focus on doing everything perfectly can lead to procrastination due to the worry of not meeting these unrealistic expectations, or a struggle to ever stop working on something that's already good enough, while more work piles up. Now, creating and crafting these podcast introductions is actually a good example of this, as I go down endless rabbit holes and spend countless hours to learn everything about a subject before sharing my thoughts here on Get Invested. Now, in childhood, we often internalise the ideas that in order to be loved or be lovable, we need to achieve and this can become a self-perpetuating cycle.
14:34 Clinical psychologist Irms also confirms that in our Western society there's a huge pressure to achieve. There can be a lot of confusion between approval and love and worthiness. Self-worth becomes contingent on achieving. This often results in a perceived need to work twice as hard to be half as good. Now, while this instills a good goal-orientated approach, it also keeps you feeling as though your efforts will never be enough. Now, again, this certainly resonates with me during my high school and university years
15:13 and my early career as an architect. And my extreme and all-consuming toxic level of imposterism cost me dearly. Understandably, the imposter phenomenon is more common among people who are embarking on a new endeavour or doing something for the first time. Most people experience some self-doubt when facing new challenges, says psychologist Lieberman. But someone with imposter phenomenon has an all-encompassing fear
15:44 of being found out to not have what it takes. Even if they experience outward signs of success, They have trouble believing that they're worthy. Instead, they chalk their success up to good luck. And as you can see, the imposter phenomenon and perfectionism often go hand in hand. So-called imposters think every task they tackle has to be done perfectly, and they rarely ask for help. That perfectionism can lead to two typical responses,
16:15 according to founding psychologist Clance. An imposter may procrastinate, putting off an assignment out of fear that he or she won't be able to complete it to the necessary high standards. Or, he or she may over-prepare, spending much more time on a task than is necessary. And worse still, some imposters do both of these, and I'm certainly guilty of falling into this category. Unfortunately, the imposter phenomenon becomes a cycle. Afraid of being discovered as a fraud, people with imposter feelings go through contortions to do a project perfectly. And when they succeed, they begin to believe that all the anxiety and effort paid off.
17:04 Eventually, they develop almost superstitious beliefs. Unconsciously, they think that their successes must be due to that self-torture, Iams says. unfortunately again this really hits home to me especially in my early days so who suffers from imposter syndrome if you've ever felt inadequate or feel like you don't belong then let out a sigh of relief because you're definitely not alone in fact some of the most famous and successful people in the world experience these same feelings let me give you some surprising examples In a recent interview on NPR, Academy Award winning actor Tom Hanks explained that he felt particularly connected to his character in the movie A Hologram for the King
17:53 because he too experiences self-doubt. Hanks said, no matter what we've done, there comes a point where you think, how did I get here? When are they going to discover that I am in fact a fraud and take everything away from me? and the CEO of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg is a recognised leadership guru but that doesn't mean she hasn't experienced feelings of imposterism in her book Lean In Women, Work and the Will to Lead
18:25 she writes that every time I didn't embarrass myself or even excelled I believed that I'd fooled everyone yet again and one day soon the jig would be up Popeye corn, Lady Gaga, isn't immune to imposter syndrome either and she's the first to admit it. In her HBO special she confessed that I still sometimes feel like a loser kid in high school
18:50 and I just have to pick myself up and tell myself that I'm a superstar every morning so that I can get through the day and be for my fans what they need me to be. In Michelle Obama's autobiography she describes how in high school a guidance counsellor told her that she was not Princeton material. Much of what she did in her youth was aimed at answering the question, am I good enough? In an article on imposter syndrome,
19:17 Bell Cooper shares that even people with some of the most famous achievements in the world worry that they're not as smart as everyone else. And here's a story by author Neil Gaiman that really demonstrates this. Some years ago, I was lucky enough to be invited to a gathering of great and good people, artists and scientists, writers and discoverers of things. And I felt that at any moment, they would realise that I didn't qualify to be there, among these people who had really done things. On my second or third night there, I was standing at the back of the hall
19:52 while a musical entertainment happened, and I started talking to a really nice, polite elderly gentleman about several things, including our shared first name and then he pointed to the hall of people and said words to the effect of I just look at all these people and I think what the heck am I doing here? They've made amazing things.
20:13 I just went where I was sent and I said yes but you were the first man on the moon and I think that counts for something and I felt a bit better because if Neil Armstrong felt like an imposter maybe everyone did. Maybe there weren't any grown-ups
20:33 only people who had worked hard and also got lucky and were slightly out of their depth all of us doing the best job we could which is all we can really hope for. So who suffers from imposter syndrome? All of the smart successful people that you think of their shit together
20:53 and the results are in. Imposter syndrome affects not only the most famous and successful people in the world, but at the same time, and at some stage, it affects every single one of us. So is imposter syndrome good or bad? Well, the answer, as always, is that it depends. As a BBC article points out, having imposter syndrome could also be a good sign. If you're sufficiently self-aware to worry that you might be a fraud, you may well not be.
21:27 And at least you're not subject to the cognitive bias at the opposite end of the spectrum known as Dunning-Kruger effect which is when people with low ability mistakenly think their ability is much higher than it is and fail to recognise their own incompetence. And interestingly one of the initiators of the mostly known
21:46 and in her eyes incorrect term imposter syndrome psychologist Clance told Harvard social psychologist Anne Cuddy in her book Presence that she wouldn't call it imposter phenomenon if she could do it all over again. She would call it the imposter experience, she said, because it's not a syndrome or a complex or a mental illness. It's something that everyone experiences.
22:12 Now, one of my virtual mentors, Seth Godin, has an interesting take on imposter syndrome. He says it's rampant. The big reason is that we're all imposters. You're not imagining that you're an imposter. It's likely that you are one. Everyone who's doing important work is working on something that might not work. So don't worry.
22:36 You've got this. And I'd take it a little bit further and say that feeling like an imposter is actually a prerequisite to achievement and sustainable success in any endeavour. Feeling like an imposter is part of the growing pains to learning and achieving anything. These imposter feelings are actually growth and achievement indicators. And if you don't have these feelings, you're probably not challenging yourself or growing. So, as I've already alluded to, I'm clearly a recovering perfectionist and an imposter. Here's another personal example.
23:11 When I started in finance breaking many years ago, I felt like a complete fraud sitting in front of couples looking to get a home loan. I had to remind myself that I didn't need to know everything. I just needed to know how and where to find the answers. I learnt that if someone asked me a question that I didn't have the answer to, I'd just respond with, now that's a great question. Now there's been a lot happening in that area in recent times, so let me get back to you on that.
23:37 So rather than try and bullshit my way through or turn red-faced because that caught me out on something that I didn't know, I'd respond that way. So when you're having these imposter feelings remind yourself that you don't need to know everything about the subject and that you're likely to know a lot more than the person that's asking the question. It's actually okay to say now before I respond let me confirm the latest or best practice on this
24:01 and I'll get back to you. You don't need to know everything and be a walking encyclopedia. You just need to buy some time know what questions to ask and where to find the answers. So as I ground my teeth in finance breaking many years ago, I just keep reminding myself that success takes time. And I just needed to surround myself with people that are better than I,
24:25 observe them, keep asking questions, and ensure that I improve a little every day. Not to compare myself with others, but to improve on who I was yesterday. That competence is a continual work in progress, and that mistakes are purely learning opportunities. However, on the extreme end of this, there's also a limit to being better than yourself every day because there is no limit.
24:51 There's a danger that you just keep working harder and longer and burn yourself out. Now, these podcast intros are actually becoming a good example. I've been trying hard to ensure that every one of these introductions and podcast episodes is better than the last. And while this has been good to push me to learn fast and add as much value as I could early on, the intros are now becoming a major time-consuming effort.
25:18 I'm in danger of becoming my own worst enemy again. This is very taxing and tiring and unsustainable on the long term, so I'm reviewing ways in which GetInvested can continue to give you awesome value without consuming my every waking moment. So stay tuned for some new directions here. so as you can hear my imposter tendencies often mean i'm plagued by self-doubt i become very good at hiding it but that doesn't mean i don't suffer from it i cover it by being an over preparer and a perfectionist i research everything about a subject so that i've got all the answers covered
25:57 and this is a good thing in the sense that it means i work really hard to know as much as i can about something in order to form my own views and insights. But the downside is that it creates unnecessary stress and anxiety, and it means that I can spend way too much time in preparation. Now, what's wrong with all that, you might ask? The pursuit of perfection is a good thing, right? Aren't hard work and dedication admirable traits? Well, yes and no. Following your passion and making a difference in the world are certainly high up on the list of things to do for a fulfilling life, no question but when you're coming from a place of lack instead of a place of love and when you get so caught up in the end results that you totally miss out on the journey well that's a
26:42 recipe for burnout this is where the subtle shift from perfection to excellence comes into play so what's the difference between perfection and excellence well it's quite subtle but they feel very different. Perfect feels constrictive, judgmental, painful, especially when the mark is missed, and it's fuelled by feelings of lack, of wanting to be accepted and liked. Excellence, on the other hand, feels warm, honourable, accepting, and it's fuelled by feelings of love and the pure intentions of being in service. When you come up a bit short on excellence, you still win. When you strive for perfect though, you're just never quite good enough. It's like being in an abusive relationship with yourself. Simply put, in
27:35 the pursuit of perfect, we miss out on much of the beauty around us in our everyday lives. Nobody's actually perfect, so it's really like living a lie. The truth is buried under all the perfect walls that we put up around us. Now, it feels much more enjoyable to just relax and enjoy the journey of life moment by moment. Just taking the time to bask in my dog's smiles and their wagging tails. They don't require any outside validation or approval at all. Now, if you can relate to this at all
28:07 and are ready to peel back some of your own layers, here are a few things to think about that will help you to enjoy the benefits of imposterism while limiting the downsides. Let's start with some great thoughts from Dawn Gluskin. Firstly, constantly remind yourself that you're enough. Ask yourself this, whose approval are you after anyway? You don't need to impress anybody.
28:33 Think about it. What does outside approval even get you? Other people think you're cool. They give you the thumbs up. You're living your life in a way that somebody else agrees with? Well, at the end of the day, if you're not living your own truth and doing things that are in alignment with your values, then you're going to be left feeling unfulfilled
28:56 and always grasping for that outside validation. Instead, remember this. Everything you need is already inside you. Learn to drown out all that outside noise. A good self-check is to ask yourself, Am I doing this for the cause or the applause? Next, start thinking wabi-sabi, the Japanese aesthetic that describes beauty as imperfections.
29:26 It celebrates cracks and crevices and other marks of time. Yes, it is in fact our imperfections that make us unique. So embrace and celebrate them. then consider what's the impression you want to leave on the world in pursuit of perfection we can often seem intense, aloof, detached and closed off by being so focused on the end result we put serious blinders on
29:53 and miss out on the joy of the moment my good wife Sonia has always reminded me of this Jeremy Sherman's thoughts on inadequacy and what to do about it are also relevant here. He suggests four basic options for keeping yourself from drowning in a sea of self-doubt. When you're feeling inadequate, there are four basic responses. One, ignore it because it's a false alarm and you're doing fine. Secondly, you can change your situation.
30:26 You're not cut out for what you're trying to achieve, so go and do something else. Thirdly, you can change your performance. You are cut out for what you're trying to achieve, but your performance is inadequate, so it's time to work harder and smarter. Or lastly, change your expectations. You are cut out for what you're trying to achieve, and your performance is adequate.
30:49 You're just expecting too much of yourself, so lower your expectations to fit the challenges you face. And here are some other thoughts on how to manage feelings of imposterism. One of the first steps to overcoming imposter feelings is to acknowledge the thoughts and put them in perspective. Simply observing that thought as opposed to engaging in it can be helpful, says psychologist Audrey Irvin.
31:14 We can help teach people to let go and more critically question those thoughts. She encourages clients to stop and prop and ask, does that thought help or hinder me? You can also reframe your thoughts. Impostor specialist Valerie Young says She reminds people that the only difference between someone who experiences imposter syndrome and someone who doesn't is how they respond to challenges. People who don't feel like imposters are no more intelligent or competent or capable than the rest of us, Young says.
31:47 And this is good news, because it means we just have to learn to think like non-imposters. Learning to value constructive criticism, understanding that you're actually slowing your team down when you don't ask for help, or remembering that the more you practice a skill, the better you'll get at it, all help. Abigail Abrams also puts it well. Most people experience moments of doubt and that's normal. The important part is not to let that doubt control your actions. The goal is not to never feel like an imposter. The goal is to acquire the tools and the insight and the information to talk yourself down faster.
32:28 You'll still have an imposter moment, but not an imposter life. And Jade Wu's blog on simple tips to help you stop feeling inadequate also gives us some clues. Insecurity is part of the human condition. In fact, it's necessary. A healthy dose of self-doubt helps us monitor ourselves and our behaviour. It sparks introspection and it motivates us to grow and change. We doubt ourselves so we can check ourselves, which allows us to get along better with our fellow humans
33:01 and ultimately keeps the species going. Not only is insecurity part of the human condition, but a total lack of insecurity is actually a sign of things gone wrong. Just look at psychopaths and narcissists. You can also change your inner self-talk and language with the following. add yet to your statements dr carol's work of stanford university is known the world over for her research on mindset she delivered a great tedx talk in which she describes a high school in chicago that gives students who don't manage to pass a class the
33:44 grade not yet what does this do most importantly it shifts the focus from a fixed mindset the idea that your basic qualities are static and unchangeable to that of a growth mindset which proposes that your talents can be developed. This shift from outcome to process implies eventual success and in the meantime focuses on effort, strategy, resilience and perseverance all really key qualities. So if your own endeavours, rather than labelling a project or a process as a failure e.g. I haven't been able to run 5 miles
34:23 I haven't found the right romantic partner I don't have my dream job tack on the word yet I don't have my dream job yet believing you can improve instead of assuming you're stuck with the cards that you're dealt makes all the difference then start replacing but with and
34:44 another powerful word is and especially when it replaces but. It gives us a chance to see a fuller, more balanced picture and to acknowledge a more complicated truth that I'm not enough story that you keep putting in your head. When you say but, you instantly erase whatever you came before especially if it's a pat on your own back for progress that you've made so far. Let's look at a couple of thoughts we might have about ourselves.
35:14 I'm eating much more nutritious food now but I have to start exercising versus I'm eating much more nutritious food now and I have to start exercising. Which one sounds more like you're scolding yourself instead of motivating yourself? When you say and, you acknowledge your wins and then use them to fuel your not yet goals.
35:40 Next, you can broaden your scope. popular pop culture would have us believe that adequacy comes from only one of a very few areas financial success fame career achievement relationship bliss or physical appearance we narrow our own vision and our measuring stick accordingly and feel hopelessly inadequate if we're not rich famous powerful in love or hot but these mainstays of pop culture and the so-called internet gurus are very narrow and misguided. A good life, as we all know, comes from so much more. Having integrity, being curious, chasing inspiration, appreciating beauty in the world, speaking the truth, and perhaps most of all, creating and maintaining loving
36:28 relationships with friends and family. Now don't get me wrong, I feel happy to enjoy pop culture and the insights of internet gurus for what they're worth, but don't rely on them to tell you what makes you worthy. And this leads nicely into beware the dangers of comparison. What's referred to as contingent self-esteem, which is the tendency to change one's self-evaluation based on feedback. It's the most fragile form of self-esteem. It's controlled by others and requires meeting their standards in order to earn value or worth as a person. And to round out the discussion, here are two tips for you. First, surround yourself with great people. When you have the right kind of people around you, they'll
37:19 encourage you. They'll see your potential. They'll help you become the best that you can be. Second, remember that everyone feels inadequate at times, so don't let that stop you. Everyone struggles with the same feelings. Just remember, you don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great. In parallel with Ali Furman's thoughts on overcoming imposter syndrome and feelings of inadequacy, I now aim to look at intimidating projects and positions as growth opportunities rather than something that I'm not qualified to do. This new mindset has been crucial as I've started new positions and experienced obstacles that would have initially felt overwhelming and too difficult to complete. Changing the way you approach new
38:05 intimidating projects and unfamiliar surroundings is a great way to overcome feelings of inadequacy. Everyone experiences new learning curves as they progress in their careers and these learning opportunities are the ones that should be sought after, not avoided. And again, drawing on the insights of marketing legend Seth Godin, he nails it directly. Everyone has fear. Don't try to make you go away, just figure out a place to put it while you're doing your work. Put fear in the closet. If you're actually fearless, you're a psychopath, Seth says. If you hire a coach to help you run a marathon, you don't ask the coach how to run a marathon without getting tired because everyone knows that finishing a marathon gets us tired. You hire
38:57 the coach to help you figure out where to put the tide and how to live with it. The same thing should be done with your fear. What you need to do is not make the fear go away. You just need to figure out where to put it. Don't try to make the fear go away. If you try to make it go away, it'll only get stronger. So in a nutshell, it's clear that when it comes to imposter syndrome or feeling like an imposter or suffering feelings of self-doubt. It's important to realise that everyone has it. Embrace these feelings as clear signs that you're challenging yourself and growing, and harness these feelings as motivators for achievement. Again, Seth Godin sums it up beautifully. Of course you're an imposter.
39:46 You're making an assertion about the future that you cannot possibly know is true, that your work will touch someone, that your effort will somehow pay off, that you see something others don't see. Maybe you do, maybe you don't. But in the act of asserting it, damn straight, you're an imposter. If you don't feel like an imposter, I don't think you're working hard enough. Great words, Seth. Now, as you heard in the opening snippet,
40:18 today's guest has suffered feelings of imposter syndrome. I think this has actually been a major contributor to her phenomenal success to date. Eliza Rowan is the Head of Australian Research at CoreLogic Australia, the country's leading and most extensive property data house. The CoreLogic research team have an awesome reputation for excellence when delivering analysis and insights on the Australian property and construction markets and key factors affecting the real estate, banking and finance, construction and risk industries. Eliza is a property market analyst. She holds a first class honours degree in economics, she's a TEDx speaker and she continues to be a regular economic and property commentator across all spheres of media.
41:08 Eliza has a wealth of experience in property data analysis and reporting. She worked as an economist at Resodex, a research analyst at Domain Group and previously as a commercial real estate and construction analyst at CoreLogic. She specialises in descriptive and inferential data analysis, data visualisation and framing data trends with broader economic concepts. Alongside her career in property data and research, Eliza is very passionate about explaining economic concepts to broader audiences. Her market briefings are always data-rich, insightful, and compelling, as you're about to find out. During our deep dive today on the future of property in the medium term, you'd be excused
41:58 for thinking that property is also suffering from imposter syndrome, because despite continued doubt about the performance of property in the mainstream media, Eliza quantifies the bright future for property and the evidence-based drivers that are creating a rare window of growth opportunity. Today, Eliza answers a range of your property questions, including why not leave economics to the economists? How do we make economics sexy and engaging for everyday Aussies? How can we improve housing affordability?
42:32 What are the biggest mistakes that people make around property and property data? How important is property data to making better property decisions? What are the best leading versus lagging property data indicators to focus on? What property data can be misleading? Are there any dangers in relying on median values and percentage value increases in interpreting property data? And what is the latest CoreLogic Home Value Index report telling us in terms of cities versus regions, houses versus units?
43:04 Will the seller's market continue? And what about rental movements? And we can conclude with a really great discussion and what's likely to happen with property in the short to medium term and what are the implications. And if you want to get a copy of the latest CoreLogic Home Value Index report to help you make better property investment decisions, just click on the link in the show notes.
43:29 Now, this is another great, wide-ranging and very insightful conversation, so please enjoy the enlightening thoughts of Eliza Owen. Hi Freighter Fighters. Now, as the sun sets on 2020 and we reflect on the year that was and the year that's going to be, one of the things that's really stuck out for me is that never before has the economy been so front and centre of all of our lives for such an extended and all-pervasive period of time. So, to kick off 2021 and project what's in store, what better person to join us than Eliza Owen, an economist and leading property market analyst, who's also described herself as a writer and a comedian.
44:15 The plot thickens. So welcome, and let's get invested, Eliza. Thank you for having me. I've put you on the spot there already, but Eliza- Oh, I wish I'd had a funny joke ready. I'm sure that your humor will come out of the discussion today, and I'm very privileged and humbled to have you join us. I've been a massive fan of your work for quite some time now across your various journeys in
44:41 the property arena. But Eliza, for those who don't know you, can you just start off by telling us who you are, what you do, and most importantly, why you do what you do? Sure. I'm Eliza Owen and I'm a property market analyst. I've been doing that for about five or six years now. I'm actually the head of research for Australia at a property data and analytics company called CoreLogic, which is about developing sophisticated property insights to empower our clients and stakeholders. I research trends in the Australian housing market, tracking things like price movements, sales volumes, listings. And I do what I do because I just find housing fascinating. It's a really interesting expression of some of the problems in economics, which is a study I'm
45:40 very passionate about, things like supply and demand, asymmetry of information. And I think that housing is just a really practical and an interesting expression of that um everyone needs a place to sleep everyone needs a place to feel at home and working at core logic in particular is amazing because i have access to amazing data and analytics um and i think housing is really about how we organize ourselves as a collective it's how we distribute resources um so that's that really keeps me motivated just finding out more about our world and and why we do what we do and how we express that through property love it love it it certainly is a physical expression of of how we live both individually and collectively so um absolutely there's a lot to get interested
46:33 in there but but let's sort of go back to where it all began if you don't mind and and talk us through uh what you've invested your time your energy and your money in over the journey so far and what have you learned from it? What are some of the high points and some of the low points and how has that led you to where you are and what you're doing now? Well, I always followed a passion in understanding economics because I found that was a study that helped me make sense of the world. So some people think of economics as all about money and finance and banking
47:11 and it's really not a lot to do with that necessarily. economics is really the study of human behavior. It looks into how we distribute resources to maximize the happiness and well-being of people with limited resources. And I think I wanted to study that because I thought it could, you know, help make the world a better place. And I guess I went into studying it at university thinking that I was going to change the world and be head of the World Bank and solve poverty and all these sorts of things. And I definitely invested a lot of time in just trying to understand issues like inequality, labor, work, and housing. When I was studying, I actually had a part-time job at an Australian property data and analytics company
48:09 called Residex which was eventually um part acquired by CoreLogic which is how I came to be there and in that time I was seeing house price data and observing uh essentially what I thought to be home ownership just kind of slipping away you know here I was in my part-time call center job and house prices in Sydney were going up by as much as 20% a year. And I thought, well, hang on, my income isn't going up by 20% a year. What's going on there? And that's why I started investigating some of the causes of increasing house prices, how that affected affordability. Um, and so I invested a lot in that research. I, I invested a lot in, in work. Um, it wasn't always paid work either. Um, I spent Friday nights researching relevant issues in economics,
49:10 like unemployment and the housing market. And then I spent Saturday mornings doing, uh, community radio talking about, um, essentially trying to break down these issues, you know, um, giving people an understanding of what is the definition of unemployment and how does that work um what is housing affordability and and what do those metrics look like and that um community radio stint actually um i met one of the coordinators of a tedx event um and so she invited me to do a TEDx talk for a youth audience so people under 25 on housing affordability and so that was a massive highlight that that came out of that effort and that work of just trying to empower people my age and trying to help them engage with housing affordability
50:05 in a in a knowledgeable way that meant they could take part in the debate and I guess you know vote and understand policy positions on housing as well yeah I'd love to dive in there because it's that sort of global perspective that you've obviously developed very early where did that come from Eliza because you're delving into subjects and and interest levels that very few people do at that vintage so I'd love to love to get a sense of is that something that came out of your interaction in the family or what sort of led you into that sort of level of interest to you? Can you remember?
50:46 Can you take yourself back there? Oh, man. I mean, maybe on a more personal level, I think I've always felt empowered by having knowledge and being in a position where I'm able to give back by breaking down complex ideas in a way that can help people understand and engage with these ideas. So I always loved debating in high school. I don't know, maybe it's a bit of an ego thing, that feeling of feeling a sense of control and empowerment by just trying to understand how the
51:25 world works. But of course, the more research you do, the more you realize that you tend to come up with more questions than answers and that's definitely shaped my views on housing affordability over time it's a much more complex issue than when i first started trying to tackle it um so yeah i think in that sense just trying to help give back and um i i think as well because it it is something that's so personal everyone has a relationship to housing so it wasn't just how am i going to own a home one day it's how is my weekly rent going to be affected by what's happening in the market at the moment i noticed more of my friends doing things like unpaid internships for example to try and develop their careers that i feel like is a phenomenon that
52:19 wasn't as common when say 20 years ago people were starting their careers and so in that sense it was a case of investigating okay how is the supply of the skilled workforce you know with with more and more people going to university that's a great thing but now you have this almost oversupply of skilled people doing law and you know industries that were media is another good example where the amount of skilled labor was becoming oversupplied relative to available jobs and that was creating this kind of race to the bottom to get more qualifications, demonstrate work experience by doing unpaid internships. And again, as someone who was a young person out of home renting and realizing that those who were able to do unpaid internships tended to be
53:18 those from um you know potentially better off situations and that created a inequality into who could attain experience for jobs and things like that so that's an example of an issue that i was living through um and economics could help us understand that and explain it and uh there was a time where i was kind of deciding between labor economics and housing market economics as it was I had more opportunity presented to me in the housing space. But it was really just a reflection of trying to understand the things that my friends and I were going through at the time. Yeah, it makes sense. And was the fall into the property space more accidental than it was deliberate? How did that come about? So as I mentioned, I had a part-time job in
54:12 Resodex. That was just the first job that I'd found because I, you know, moved out of home into my first year of university, needed a job. And my job at Resodex was actually sitting on the phone and calling real estate agents so that I could, we could get recent sales results that we could plug into the analytics. And when you're, for a little bit of background about how the data space in property works um a lot of analytics are calculated off the basis of sales information but the way that that sales information is collected and um by government authorities and administration creates a lag in between the event of a sale and that being received by say an analytics company quite massive so we're talking months on a lot of occasions where that's what
55:10 moving forward with? Yes. So, it depends on which state or territory. Some of them deliver regular data outputs, but the data might be a bit more lagged. So, in the industry of housing market analytics, it tends to be the case where a lot of companies will try and get ahead of that collection. And in the case of Resodex, it was through the collection of recent sales in a call Center. And that's where I started. And I was just very fortunate because I was studying economics at the time. I engaged with John Edwards, who founded Residex. And we would just talk about the housing market. I would lament the state of the housing market and how rapidly prices were rising. And from that, he showed me more data, historical data. And eventually, he asked me to
56:02 help him edit economic reports. And from there, I just kind of took over from him eventually and then came to be at CoreLogic, where I got to learn from more brilliant people across the business, including Tim Lawless, who's our Director of Research for the Asia Pacific at CoreLogic. And yeah, I've just had incredible mentors and incredible opportunities. So, So, yeah, it was, I suppose, in that sense, I fell into it, which is a career, right? Well, and not uncommon, by the way, either. It's sort of an evolving interest to then become a passion
56:41 as you get more exposure to it, which sounds exactly as it has been for you. You took a sort of step into the domain patch for a stretch before coming back to CoreLogic. Talk to us a bit about the differences and the contrast that you saw between the organisations before then making the decision to come back into CoreLogic? So I think for me it was a case of opportunity.
57:06 I, you know, was at Domain doing more housing market research and then the opportunity to rejoin CoreLogic came to head up the research position in Australia. And the cool thing about working with analytics at CoreLogic is that it's a very sophisticated set of products that you're working with. So rather than looking at and assessing just a median value, say, you're also working with analytics like the hedonic price index, which so that the home value index produced by CoreLogic is a metric where we're imputing the value of every single property in a region. we're evaluating the entire value of that property market based on each of the properties in that region and then the index produced represents the change in that total value over time and we report on that monthly so it's a very high frequency metric that you're tracking
58:18 it's a very comprehensive metric because you're looking at every property not just the the one that sits in the middle. But we can also break that up. So a cool metric that we have at CoreLogic is home value indices divided by segments of the market. What's the bottom 25% of the market doing? What's the middle segment of the market doing? What's the high end doing? And through that, we're able to understand dynamics like, oh, okay, the high end of the market in Sydney and Melbourne is more volatile, which means it has higher highs and lower lows. So during a downturn, everyone freaks out about maybe the inner east of Melbourne has lost most value. But because of those dynamics, we know, oh, okay, well, actually, it's probably going to have the highest growth
59:11 rates during the next upswing. So just insights like that, CoreLogic has also utilized metadata through the pandemic, which basically means we've been able to take data around the number of comparative market analysis reports or property reports that real estate agents generate when they're trying to win a listing. So even by taking account of those property reports and tracking the volume of them over time, we're able to get a sense of how many or the direction of new listings that come onto the market because we're tracking that metadata and that was something that core logic put together off the back of the onset of covet 19 so it was a really rapid response leveraging powerful data to gain a kind of high frequency leading indicator of market activity and it's
01:00:10 just like who else gets to play with that kind of data you know what i mean yeah yeah exciting i mean And it's something off the back of that. We had the early market indicators report, which we now distribute on a on a monthly basis and people can get insights for their state. We're tracking that and we're also tracking orders of valuations for the purchase of property, which gives us a sense of mortgage activity as well. Of course. Yeah, exactly. I mean, you're really, with the tentacles that CoreLogic has across all of those different spheres, you're really at the vortex and the center. No, you really are in terms of access to that dynamic information. There's no organisation in the country that has access to such that broad spectrum, but also the currency of that information where you're actually tracking intentions, not transactions. There's quite a difference there. And as you've said, the evaluation activity, the real estate agents who are putting together their reports, you've got access to that information that's really starting to indicate trends of the future rather than looking through the rearview mirror all the time.
01:01:27 Sure, yeah. And it's great having like being in a position where you actually get to share that information and report on that, which is, I mean, knowledge has been so important for people during the pandemic because it's been such an uncertain time. And I'm very proud that we were able to produce research, partly looking at those high-frequency indicators, but also looking at our breadth and depth of historical data to say, okay, this is how housing markets have performed in previous negative economic shocks. This is going to inform potentially how the market performs during COVID-19. and I think we really had one of the strong comprehensive first responses to how Australian property might perform during COVID-19, which is just something that I'm very proud of in my time at CoreLogic. Yeah, I love it.
01:02:23 And the work that you've done around looking at economic shocks in the past and what really does influence property values versus the hysteria Hysteria that often gets promoted by the unwashed and the uneducated in other areas of the media, might I say, as politely as I possibly can. Awesome. Something before we sort of drill down into some of that then, you know, one of the, I'm sure, challenges that you may have had along your journey, because the real estate and property game can be a very, it still is to some degree, a very blokey sort of an atmosphere, Eliza. i'm trying to be polite here how have you sort of have you come up against that if so how have you tackled that and how have you sort of learned to maneuver your way around that to position yourself so strongly as a voice of the industry i mean i've been very lucky in the sense that
01:03:20 when i was interacting with the likes of john edwards tim lawless um and even other very informed and and experienced women um in the property industry um our um our core logic gm lisa clars um as well as um or just i guess i've always had mentors and people above me who haven't given a second thought to the fact that i'm a young woman right um and you know that yeah there's been no hesitation from them to give me opportunities, which has been amazing. I do have to acknowledge as well that I come from a privileged position. So despite being a woman, I'm white. I have a good education. I got to go to a great university. And those things have obviously been an advantage to me through my career as well. There have been times where,
01:04:24 You know, I may have gone to an event as the keynote speaker and someone has thought that perhaps my male colleague who was with me was the keynote speaker and, you know, has ignored me until they realized that I'm actually there to do the keynote. But I think almost one of the advantages that you get as being someone who is potentially underestimated in this space is that you're encouraged to work really hard. And I have put in a lot of hours. I've put in a lot of hard work. And in a way, even though you may have insecurities and imposter syndrome, which, by the way, is something that applies to both men and women. um if you have those insecurities i think for me i was inclined to work even harder to ensure that i was as well as well informed as i could be um memorizing keynotes before i got up to do them so that you know i wasn't relying on notes um reading and researching widely not just about
01:05:32 housing and economics, but about related fields like transport, urbanism, interior design, whatever. Just really going above and beyond to ensure that I could prove myself to people who had potentially underestimated my ability. But I will say that at least in my workplaces, I've just had people who have been very supportive and really were willing to give me opportunities. Love it. I love that. And this is where, because I'm listening to you say that I suffered
01:06:12 a lot of very similar exercises myself early in my career as an architect and my way of probably alleviating my own imposter syndrome and my own insecurities was to do exactly what you just said. I just worked harder than anyone else. And I used to say I might have only been in the industry for two years, but I've done 10 years worth of work because I work seven days a week, 14 hours a day to know the information way better than anyone else so that I can stand here confidently and know what I'm doing. Yeah, I mean, imposter syndrome, I think, can trigger almost trying to overcompensate in a way. But, you know, it's important to question yourself. I think one of the most important things as a researcher is to know that getting to the truth of something can be really hard.
01:07:01 And we just reminding ourselves that we don't always know, you know, that that keeps you motivated to read widely, stay engaged. And part of being a great researcher, a great academic is constantly questioning your your views, you know, to an extent. I think that can be an advantage. totally agree and it's a great trait to take all the way through your life I often say now I'm getting a bit old and crusty now Eliza but that constant questioning yeah because the curiosity is the thing that keeps you alive and keeps you interested in life generally and it's unfortunately and very sadly I think I see even in high school a lot of defeatism starting to creep in
01:07:54 when, well, there's no point pursuing my dreams because they're never going to happen. And what I'm hearing in you is there's this innate curiosity that then is fuelled and satisfied by just doing research beyond the pale to really trying to get to the bottom of what's really going on here. Yeah, and I think housing affordability has been a really good example of that where for me it all came from this motivation of trying to do the right thing and trying to have a voice where I could use that to try and help as many people as possible.
01:08:38 And when I was younger, looking at rapidly increasing house prices, I thought the right thing was to say that we need to prioritise, you know, lowering house prices, reducing investment speculation in the market. And to an extent, I think, you know, ensuring supply of housing for everyone, some of those principles still hold true. But in researching more widely, you know, you come across things like the Australian Housing Urban and Research Institute produced research around how home equity is very important especially for people later in life with many
01:09:16 accessing the wealth in their house to fund health care and aged care and when you start to see the housing affordability issue from both the non-homeowner and the homeowner perspective you realize what a challenge it is because it's simultaneously an asset that's harder to gain access to but one that is so increasingly important for australians wealth you know about 53% of household wealth is held in the housing asset. So in that sense, we need to approach housing affordability more carefully than to say, bring down the price of assets, because what are you doing to people's wealth? And in that sense, I think alternatives like maybe taking some of the emphasis off housing as a source of wealth by finding new investment
01:10:04 streams, investing in, um, other productive industries, uh, you know, that's where you can come to better, more well-informed solutions about affordability. And, uh, I think it's one that I, I still have questions about what is good housing policy? What entitlement do I have to property? You know, these are very fundamental philosophical questions that i still want an answer to and i think i still need to work on to create more of a firm footing in having a voice in in that space and i think it's a it's an area that unfortunately is dominated by vested interests and it's the old squeaky wheel we that the loud voices get get the um the radio time so to speak and and just as you've so very well described they're coming from a very
01:11:00 narrow perspective quite often rather than as you're now immersed in this the broad spectrum of information and impacts at all levels so in you know different demographics in different locations it's a very very dynamic space and and it's unlike equities where there's a perfect market scenario there's a big emotional content in property as well that influences well-being so it's it's not an easy uh equation to to get your head around and because of its dynamics what might be right today isn't necessarily what it's going to be tomorrow either yeah it's very interesting yeah isn't it yeah it's interesting to see as well the the kind of public discourse around the issue where um between the upswing of 2012 to 2017 this is the period where property
01:11:56 prices across Sydney and Melbourne were rising as much as 20% a year. There was a lot of investigation of, oh, we have to find the cause. There was a 2014 inquiry into foreign investment in Australian real estate and a discourse developing around foreign investors being the cause of the issue. And then research produced from the University of Sydney suggested that actually foreign investment may have only accounted for about 2% of real estate transactions or the value of real estate transactions around that time. And then there were discourses around, oh, well, it's, you know, young people are spending too much on avocados and not putting enough into their savings.
01:12:44 And, you know, and I'm there sitting on my pile of avocados thinking, well, that doesn't seem right. whereas as now you know during the current upswing i think um the the rapid rebound in the property market that we've seen since mid-2019 there has been more acknowledgement around the fact of the the government sort of saying like well actually maybe having cheaper housing isn't the goal and instead the policy has been very much around providing a leg up into the market as it is through, for example, the first home loan deposit scheme.
01:13:24 It's not about providing affordable housing. It's about providing a leg up over the deposit hurdle so that you can… Yes, access, not affordability. They're very different things, aren't they? Exactly. It's housing accessibility, not housing affordability, that has been the emphasis more recently, which is really interesting. I mean, I don't personally, I don't have an opinion
01:13:46 as to whether that is right or wrong i think that's a bigger philosophical question but it's just so interesting to see how in the space of about five or six years the discourse around it has changed so much um yeah it's been really interesting to observe yeah i think the the drivers are different now because we're in a situation where as because of the the global impact and the domination of COVID in our thinking and the uncertainty that that provides, the recessionary conditions that that potentially created, and then the reliance on the need to get Australian spending to get ourselves out of this means that any form of spending and then spending in areas where there's going to be related employment.
01:14:37 So I think, again, there's been a lot of policy produced very quickly and needed to be produced very quickly given the times that we were confronted with. And I think while there's been some criticism, I actually applaud the government in the way they have quickly recognised that by incentivising people to put money into new-build property, there's a flow-on effect in terms of employment. They've dropped some of the hurdles.
01:15:05 But the good news is now we've gone from a, and I'll be interested in your thoughts on this, we've gone from an era where the only blunt instrument that the government was using through the RBA were interest rates to affect the demand side of the equation. What we've now got is we've gone from a blunt hammer to a Rubik's cube and a multi-combination lock where the interaction with the banking sector and we all know that the access to credit has a massive impact on the demand side of the equation. They've now got multiple levers and the ability to impact on those levers far more quickly than they ever did. So they've got more rudders in the water that can then tamper and up and down the volume.
01:15:52 What are your thoughts around that? Oh, absolutely. I mean, first and foremost, the role of the Reserve Bank of Australia is, you know, attaining strong levels of employment and suitable levels of inflation. and one of the consequences of essentially making the price of money cheaper through economic downturns is, you know, it's about getting people borrowing and spending. When you make money cheap, people are more incentivized to borrow and so that has had a demonstrated relationship on housing prices where research from the RBA actually estimates that a one percent reduction in the official cash rate, which is their main tool, can lead to an 8% increase in
01:16:44 property prices, which is interesting because the cash rate is reduced during times of economic downturn. And so, you have this kind of counterintuitive increase in housing values amidst times of economic downturn. Now, the RBA is not necessarily responsible for monitoring house prices. The RBA, I think, you know, would even posit that the increase in house prices and housing market activity is one of the ways through which monetary policy can increase economic activity because the more people that are buying and building houses, the more construction workers you employ,
01:17:32 the more white goods you sell, the more real estate agents you have on the ground. Where we see a monitoring of some of the risks associated with the direction of house prices and the amount of debt that goes into purchasing property would be far more under the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, So APRA that monitors prudential standards in lending. So that's where APRA have certainly implemented temporary policies and various tools in order to influence the nature of access to credit.
01:18:12 So, for example, in 2014, APRA put in a temporary policy which was limiting the growth in investment housing lending, putting a cap on that at 10% a year. They later introduced in 2017, on top of that, a cap on interest-only lending. And interest-only lending, they put this cap of 30% on lending that could go out on interest-only terms. At the time that that cap was put in place,
01:18:44 about 70 percent of um invest or no sorry it was um more utilized by investor borrowers but close to 50 percent of lending was going out on interest-only terms so when they kind of tap the brakes on that investment lending that created or or at least catalyzed i would say in my opinion a downturn in borrowing and housing market values as a result and that's where we saw that big downturn between 2017 and 2019. Now because the composition of the market is less investors and much more owner occupiers and first home buyers the macro prudential interventions that we might see as the housing market heats up could be things like examining the ratio of debt
01:19:41 to one's income, the ratio of housing debt to one's income. And, you know, I think in 2021 if house prices continue to accelerate in the way that they have in the past couple of months, we might see some intervention in that space if app reviews lending becoming potentially risky. Well, interestingly enough, our finance breaking game has already seen DTI, debt-to-income ratios, as a factor that the banks are now using to decide whether someone has the capacity to borrow. So that's already creeping in as we speak, Eliza.
01:20:22 There you go. Yeah, and I'm sure that that's just a small smattering of what's likely to occur if it starts to overheat. So while this is a delicate balance, I think, and I'd love your thoughts around this as well because with the Treasurer announcing or trying to get through Parliament the relaxation of responsible lending laws as of March, what's your read on what that might look like and what impact that may have on the markets post-March?
01:20:52 Yeah, I think a policy like that, if it gets through, And I think that will be an important if when we consider that, you know, housing market values are rising and household debt is increasing, then, you know, obviously it would have an inflationary effect on houses. And any policy that enables easier access to credit has tended to have inflationary pressure on housing market values. so but even then it's as you say these kinds of changes in policy and even changes in the cash rate they get filtered through a set of policy from the prudential regulators from the culture of the banking systems and how those policies are implemented as well so i think that apra would be keeping a close eye on those things and that there are things they can do if they see lending becoming too risky yeah yeah and that's i think the the good news now is that there are multiple
01:21:50 opportunities and multiple levers that uh governments at various levels can now tap into to doing that circling back to the affordability discussion or the more the accessibility of the discussion i'd love your thoughts around uh you know the potential ongoing impacts of the changes in stamp duty that New South Wales has introduced, and there'll be a ripple effect with Victoria's play, but a little bit temporarily. It's likely to move forward. What's your thoughts around what that's going to look like and what potential impacts that might have on housing generally, do you think? Yeah, it's a very interesting space. So for anyone who is not familiar with the with the broader argument that's been consensus among urbanists and economists
01:22:40 this idea that a ongoing broad-based land tax is more efficient than stamp duty broad-based land tax being where you would pay a rate of tax annually on the based on the size of the land um as opposed to the stamp duty where you pay a lump sum up front on the purchase and i i'm i think there's general consensus that stamp duty um eliminating stamp duty and replacing that with a land tax would not necessarily improve affordability because the stamp duty and house prices as they are, are a reflection of what people are able to pay. If you remove the stamp duty, you increase the purchasing capacity of the individual. And theoretically, they would then bid up the house price to the value of that stamp duty that they didn't have to pay. So, by that argument,
01:23:46 potentially stamp duty doesn't have an impact on house prices. What it may do, however, is increase the efficiency of housing. And if we think about stamp duty and the way that that operates at the moment, there's an argument that it is a very inefficient tax. Treasury modelling suggests that collecting $1 of stamp duty revenue costs the economy about 70 cents, as opposed to more efficient taxes like GST, which have a very low cost to the economy in collecting that revenue. Now, part of that cost comes from people's decision making, and I guess mental barriers to paying a lump sum tax, where if you know that you have to pay a big lump of tax each time you purchase a property, a young couple might decide to purchase a big family home in the knowledge
01:24:48 that one day they'll want to purchase the big family home in order to avoid paying stamp duty twice. And therefore, they may be living on space that is bigger than what they need. A similar argument would be for empty nesters who aren't willing to make the jump and downsize if they have to pay stamp duty right away or if one were to move somewhere else in order to get a job and they have to go through paying stamp duty and paying that tax. I don't know that that is necessarily a kind of proven inefficiency, but that is one of the arguments cited in how it can create an economic cost. Well, that's sort of golden handcuffs to some degree, both as a barrier to getting and a barrier to make a change in that context. Right. Whereas if you put in a broad-based land tax instead, the empty nesters might not want to be paying a tax for all this land that they don't need. And essentially people would be incentivized to find the housing that is optimal for them based on having to pay an ongoing annual tax. so in that sense it could increase property turnover it could improve the efficiency of land and I think what the New South Wales government are doing is a step in the right direction in
01:26:19 terms of trying to transition though it is a very gradual kind of process I think it's a step in the right direction. Well I guess it needs to be funded and I've sort of read the article that to, you know, depend very well on this subject, it's going to take 18 years to flow through given the sort of transaction. Based on turnover. Yeah. And that's assuming that people opt for the land tax option because as far as I understand, the policy design was having the option to pay your lump sum, which if you're an owner
01:26:51 or occupier who sees yourself being in the property for a long time, you may be more incentivized to do that anyway. but still, you know, a step in the right direction better than not doing anything. Absolutely, absolutely because beyond that and this is where I guess I've had similar views to you that it's more an accessibility issue rather than affordability issue and that deposit hurdle is a massive barrier to entry
01:27:20 and stamp duty is a big component of that because you can't fund that, you can't borrow against that, You've got to have that in the pocket before you start. For sure, yep. So, yeah, interesting. Very interesting. Let's sort of circle back into the area of property data for a minute because I guess we've gone, and you would have seen this
01:27:39 in the years you've now spent in the industry, we've gone from very limited data to a mass of dynamic data. And for the average Joe on the street to try and make head or tail out of it what what's your advice to the listeners in terms of what information should they be focusing on in terms of let's take property purchases as a as an example what sort of information do you think they should be focusing their attention on and what information should they perhaps be ignoring that it's going to confuse them rather than than advance the cause one thing i would say i think the main thing to focus on is the long term um i think when
01:28:27 we report on property data um and and when the media talks about property there is a lot of emphasis over you know what was the top performing area over the past 12 months or the past six months and that can be so confusing i totally understand why we do it you know it's fun and it's um engaging to think about you know who won the most money this year for owning property yeah um but ultimately the property market moves in these very dynamic cycles and sometimes segments of the market don't move in unison so before when i was saying that you know we have observed the high end of the property market, so the top 25% of values in Sydney and Melbourne tend to be what we call first movers. So they might exhibit a turn in the property cycle before
01:29:25 the middle part of the market or the low end of the market, which means that when you look at a 12-month growth rate, the high-end suburbs might look like the best performers or the worst performers in a 12-month space. But because it's part of a larger cycle, that's certainly a temporary part of the movement in prices. In fact, if we look at long-term growth rates, so long-term, what we call annualized growth rates, which is basically a typical annual rate of return over, say, five or 10 years based on what's been returned in the capital growth in a property. The long-term annualized growth rates are very similar for a lot of sub-markets across Sydney and Melbourne. It doesn't matter where in the market you buy, a long-term annualized
01:30:21 growth rate, say over a 10-year period, might be 4% to 5% for all the sub-markets of Sydney and Melbourne. So I think just that focus on the long-term and also just that knowledge that it's time in the market, not timing the market that is really important. We produce a pain and gain report, which looks at the portion of properties that have sold at a profit, sold at a loss. And invariably, it's always those properties that have been held for a longer period of time, 10, 20, 30 years that have the most profit. Whereas those properties that have made a loss are more likely to have been held for a shorter period of time.
01:31:07 So I think that can create a lot of fear. Am I going to buy into a housing market that loses 10% of its value in a year? Maybe you will. But over the period of 10 years, maybe it'll gain much more. So I think just keeping a view of those long-term growth prospects um it's probably the most important important thing and also i guess at that personal level just buying where you can afford um you know and and that's a conversation that that people should be having with qualified professionals brokers music to my ears eliza yeah we've been
01:31:47 saying and banging the drum for as long as i've been in the game that uh property is at least a 15-year journey, at least a 15-year journey. And you know the data better than I do, but if you look at areas around the country and, you know, sort of the good data we can get our hands on at the moment, you know, sort of with enough detail as over the last 30 years, well, time and time again we see that areas have only really had two rapid rises of growth for periods of sort of two
01:32:21 to five years over that 30-year period. uh the rest of the time it's quite flat sometimes it goes back five or ten percent then it plateaus and then you'll see a growth spurt for a two to five year period and it'll plateau again if you're taking that sort of 15 year horizon which will carry you through a full full cycle in most areas then you're going to come out of it all right so um uh love your thinking around that uh this is probably a good segue into looking at the dynamics of the most recent data that's come out, Eliza, around the home value index that's just been released.
01:32:56 I would love for you to drill down into some of that in the context of what it's telling you and then leverage that into what does it mean to us and probably more importantly, what does the future look like in the short to medium term? Sure. So we recently put out our December results for the house price index
01:33:18 and 2020 basically reflected a resilience in property values based on what we were discussing earlier about how monetary policy can create an increase in values even against a negative economic shock so Australian home value has wound up three percent higher over the year it's been really interesting to see how the pandemic has produced a kind of premium on regional property, you know, the normalisation of remote work and potentially remote properties becoming more desirable has seen the combined regional housing market in Australia increase by almost 7% compared to just a 2% increase in capital city values. Again, it's coming off a low base, though, and this is where the percentages can be a bit
01:34:09 interesting because regional areas are predominantly at a lower price point. So you don't need to see a massive increase in demand to see what appears to be a big percentage increase. But in dollar terms, it's probably far less than what we're seeing in the city regions. Am I right in saying that? The distinction is really important. So the combined capital city values are probably sitting around $650,000 compared to $420,000 in the regional. So that's right. This data is not to say that regional properties are now more expensive than the capital cities, but that they have had a higher percentage increase over the year. And yeah, so that's sort of the result that we've seen in the regionals, the capitals, and then across different capital city markets,
01:35:01 the results have been varied again. So, the biggest to utilize what I was earlier describing as misleading reporting on the property market over the year, Darwin has been the top performer with an increase of dwelling values of 9%. But as you say, it's important to contextualize that um darwin dwelling values have been falling since 2014 so this nine percent increase is off the back of one of the longest and largest corrections we've ever seen in a property market where darwin dwelling values have increased nine percent over the year but is still sitting about 25 percent below the peak value which was in 2014 at the height of the mining boom um in perth story yeah Yeah, so not as strong a percentage increase in Perth, about 2% higher over the year.
01:35:58 But this is among the first annual increases we've seen in the Perth dwelling market, again, since 2014. So very similar. Both markets move with the mining sector, yeah, essentially. Yeah, interesting. Let's keep going around the grounds while we're talking about it then. Sure. So, Sydney and Melbourne have, in previous years, have been very strong performers, but over the years, Sydney dwelling values are up 3%, so about at that national mark. Melbourne dwelling values are down 1.3%, and that's largely a reflection of the extended lockdowns that we saw across Melbourne this year, where economic activity and transaction activity was slowed down.
01:36:45 yeah through the pandemic meanwhile some of the smaller capital city markets have posted strong results hobart continued to see a strong annual growth rate of six percent over the year hobart unit values have now actually overtaken brisbane unit values really yeah um so hobart units are now the fourth most expensive of the capital cities do you think it's a benefactor again of that sort of regionalization and decentralization that covid has has created or there are other factors driving that do you think hobart's been showing this trend for maybe i want to say about five years i thought it'd run out of puff but it uh i thought it was going to as well i thought it was going to as well i even wrote a um article a couple i think it must have
01:37:41 been before COVID where I called it the end of the Hobart honeymoon and growth rates were starting to erode purely across the fact that it had such strong growth. So the resurgence of growth across Hobart could in fact be the seeking more regional kind of lifestyles. But ultimately, I think that had just been a market which for a very long time, the potential had not been realized. And then in 2014, Xi Jinping visited Tasmania. And suddenly, it was sort of put on the map as this really desirable tourist destination, both domestically and internationally. And that's where we saw the influx of short-term rental accommodation, a lot of tourism employment, and Hobart has really taken off and off the back of that we've seen a spillover into regions like
01:38:39 the southeast of Tasmania and Launceston which have seen double-digit capital growth for the past couple of years as well the clean green safe and and space location I guess which will potentially become more attractive given what's happened around the rest of the globe in in recent times yeah absolutely what let's talk about one of my favorite cities given that i lived there for a long time the good old adelaide that's always been the sort of stephen bradbury of the of the property performers uh that it's is that a sports reference it is a sports reference that you know sorry you know the guy that the ice skater who won the gold medal because he was the only man left standing at the end of the race everyone fell over
01:39:24 on the way through to the barrier so Adelaide Stephen Bradbury um yeah I mean Adelaide for me I've always characterized it as a slow and steady performer it's one that has among the lowest volatility in growth rates of the capital cities and part of that is because it's been less of an investor's market and more of a kind of owner-occupied um market that's been subject to just kind of that steady trickle of population increase over the three months to December Adelaide had a quarterly growth rate of 3.6 percent so that's the highest quarterly growth rate that the city has seen since 2008 and I think it is a reflection that there has been a bit more interest in that market over 2020 as a lot of returning expats I think this is just
01:40:17 but this is not anecdotal data really, but there's a lot of returning Adelaideans who've chased jobs interstate and are now able to return home and work from home versus being in the capitals. And, you know, there's sort of figures being thrown around of 80-odd thousand returning Adelaideans that are putting some pressure on both rentals and property purchases as a result. Is that sort of backed up anywhere in the data that you're looking at?
01:40:49 I haven't seen anything reflected in some of the recent migration releases. I'd have to look into that, but that's good to know. It's a starting point. Interesting. It is all anecdotal. I just keep hearing it because we're in touch with agents all the time and that's what they keep telling us. That's great, yeah.
01:41:10 No, that's good. But I love the anecdotes because then I get a starting point to work off rather than trying to work backwards. Yeah. The other area that we haven't touched on, of course, is Brisbane. And Brisbane has sort of been a star in waiting, in my view. It sort of had all the right sort of indicator but never really shown any great signs.
01:41:33 And my interpretation of that was that it's lacking the infrastructure that really precedes the growth and what the Queensland government has now done is brought forward a lot of that infrastructure that may have an impact and there's a fair bit of intrastate migration from other states sort of starting to flow in there. What's your read on what the data's telling you
01:41:55 about particularly South East Queensland? Yeah, absolutely. Internal migration data shows that South East Queensland has been a top destination from Aussies moving around the country. Most of that interstate migration comes from New South Wales. And a lot of what we've seen, it's been interesting to see that traditionally you'd have younger cohorts sort of moving into Brisbane, the typical first home buyer,
01:42:24 whereas to Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast you get sort of some of those older cohorts as well. Yeah. More recently, we've seen that first home buyer, family home buyer is now looking to regional Queensland. But overall, the internal migration has shown Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast as top destinations. Those regions have had very strong growth rates in recent years. As you say, I think it's kind of Brisbane that hasn't seen as much of the increase. I sort of put that down to an extent as well.
01:43:01 Some of the broader impacts of the decline of the mining sector had on the Queensland economy. But I agree. I think it's just such a – there's so much of a price gap there in terms of relative affordability to Sydney and Melbourne. We know that it's been a popular destination from people from New South Wales and Victoria anyway. And if anything, COVID-19 would probably amplify that trend given that it has normalised remote work. Yeah, exactly, exactly. I'd love to sort of touch on that subject because are you reading this as a long-term shift or as a knee-jerk short-term response that may then normalise over time?
01:43:44 What's your feeling on it? Well, initially I thought that there would be mitigating factors to the regional migration for example we've historically seen movement to the regions has been somewhat correlated with price increases in cities that suggested to me that people tend to move away to nearby regional centers when the capital cities become too expensive and by that logic people might move back as we've seen capital city prices more impacted by the pandemic for example in melbourne where property prices are down about 2% over the year. I also thought that the whole return to work strategy
01:44:25 would be a mitigating factor. But since the resurgence of COVID cases across New South Wales and even just personally getting emails being like, no rush to come back to the office, I'm thinking, yeah, maybe this could be a longer-term trend. And it's compounded by factors like housing affordability but COVID has just implemented a real cultural change in the workplace and given that it's probably going
01:44:58 to be a long time before we can really contain the virus and see international travel and interstate travel, there could be more of an emphasis on just escaping to the regions. I think it is a significant long-term trend that will have an impact but it does necessitate a real comfortable culture of remote work and the infrastructure to support i think that the areas that are going to really blossom are those that have the infrastructure in place or it's
01:45:29 going to be in place yeah those that won't will struggle uh and i and i guess i'm sort of a bit of a contrarian in this regard because we've been living and working remotely as a business nationally now and virtually for over five years as a very deliberate lifestyle thing because the technology enables us to do it. You know, we live on a beautiful rural property sort of 40 minutes out of the city, but we can be in the city if we need to that quickly. We've got a team right across the country. We've been Zooming for as long as Zoom's actually been in place.
01:46:04 We wouldn't have it any other way. It's just a great way to live. You can do the same. And the great news now is that the banks and all the other parties who are resisting this sort of remote contact have now come to the party because they've had to. They've had to. You can now interact with someone and do a home loan for them
01:46:20 without having to physically sit in front of them. And that's a massive change. And then the digital signing and all the rest of it contractually means that we can now very happily remote far more effectively, no travel, with a much better enjoyable lifestyle. Yeah. I mean, I guess another important factor in this has been the people's ease and comfort with moving. And you might say that in the midst of a pandemic, it's not an ideal time
01:46:50 to uproot your family, risk your accessibility to your work by moving somewhere regional. So I think it's potentially even more likely to be amplified by an economic recovery when people are feeling more comfortable, when people do have time and resources to move. That could really be the indicator as to whether this is a trend that's going to continue. As it is, the migration data that was released provisionally by the ABS, it's only really shown this trend picking up in Victoria, where we saw more strict social distancing restrictions. Not quite as prominent in the other states, which is interesting because like you, I've heard a lot of anecdotes of you know people looking to move regionally so um yeah i think that'll that'll be the real test is
01:47:46 when we start seeing better economic conditions agreed let's touch on the the other one that sort of gets a lot of press and that that's the international borders uh because as again you know way better than i the uh international migrants have a particularly in the early days have a much bigger impact on rental markets they do it than on housing demand because that's what they tend to do. But at some point in time, when we're well and truly beyond it, the borders will open. And I'm guessing that Australia is probably looking like the envy of many parts of the world, given how well we've coped both with the health and the economic issues. So I'm sort of envisaging that a lot of people will be wanting to come to Australia. Absolutely. I tend to agree. I think
01:48:35 it's it's not something we've talked about a lot but there will come that time when international borders reopen and Australia offers spaciousness and um I think obviously the international student population is is one that tends to focus on urban centers like inner city Sydney and Melbourne um but yeah I think both regionally and for the metropolitans we could see a lot of interest in Australia once again when borders reopen. I mean, I guess it won't be a hard reopen. It'll be something that happens gradually. But I think that's a really good prospect for property values going forward. Totally. And I guess just sort of to bring the property discussion to a close then in looking at the future, I mean, we've got the potential
01:49:29 relaxation and lending laws. We've got, at a later point, potentially opening the international borders, and they're all sort of demand side equations, whether it be rental or property demand. On the flip side, we've got the sort of reduction in fiscal stimulus and the end of home loan deferrals, which, given what's happened, is unlikely to have too much of an impact in the short term. But are there other risks that you're seeing on the horizon that will impact on what a lot of commentators are talking about, a potential boom in property in some areas in the next 12 to 18 months? Yeah, so I think the areas of risk are pretty contained
01:50:12 in terms of the characteristics. So as long as international borders are closed, that's going to affect demand in the markets that have seen the most exposure to overseas migration in the past few years, which has been inner city Sydney and inner city Melbourne, largely. In that space, we also still have a relatively high level of new unit supply being completed as rental markets have declined and investor participation has declined. So, I think in terms of, you know, getting a bargain, it might be achievable
01:50:46 in those inner city areas, but as an investor, you'd have to be able to go without a tenant potentially for a long period of time. Elsewhere, I think it's clear that the thing about the growth rate we saw in December is that it's not just another growth rate, it's higher than the previous month, which was higher than the month before that, which means the growth is gathering momentum. And I expect that will continue into 2021. The home loan deferrals, as you say, they were sort of a major risk when at um around june this year we saw about 11 of housing loans deferred that's now come down to just um two percent or two two and a half percent thereabouts so that's much less of a risk um than it than it was initially through the pandemic and it's
01:51:40 a reflection of the government extending the stimulus and extending the um deferral periods as well which is a good sign um so i think overall you know that there is potential for further growth in the australian property market there's always going to be those constraints around affordability um other economic shocks whether it's a resurgence of covet 19 or how trade relations with china impact some of our sectors and the impact that that has on housing markets as well but uh all things being equal at the moment i think um it's going to be a good year for real estate in 2021 yeah totally agree totally agree uh it's not often i've been in the industry a long time now it's not often i see the property planets align but they are they are
01:52:32 coming into an eclipse and uh when we talk about those 15 year horizons where and i've got to emphasise that the rising tide doesn't float all ships in property, it never has and never will, and it'll be even more exacerbated as a result of what we've seen in COVID and flowing through. The acceleration, good properties will perform better and bad properties will probably perform worse. So it's a very interesting time but a bit of a window of opportunity for those that are sitting on the sidelines, I think,
01:53:05 wondering uh what to do then now is probably a good time to start getting your ducks in a row but uh that's my own thoughts on it um love i feel like i could talk to you for hours eliza but what i would love to do is have the opportunity to get you back on because the insights that you have shared with us today are just fantastic and the the well the contextual thinking that you bring to the equation is just second to none given that you've got that sort of exposure across all areas and across time frames it really adds some depth to the insights that you share with us thank you but oh thanks for having me thank you I'm going to jump into the old ambush round though before we do finish which are the questions that the listeners always love to share your words
01:53:52 of wisdom on and the first one of those is what's your favorite quote and why at the moment my favorite quote is it's a bit of a mantra uh and it's you didn't win um it's a quote i heard on a podcast uh where some women were talking about essentially facing up to the fact that you might not be the best at something that you're not getting the trophy that you're not the star or the smartest person in the room um and really just remaining humble about doing your work for the right reasons not to get the prize um and so that yeah just reminding myself hey you didn't win maybe this didn't go right but you're building your resilience and you're working with integrity and that's sort of what's most important love it that's a cracker actually it's so simple but
01:54:47 very profound when you put it in that in that context really love that one um on the literary front then uh what would be the top book that you'd recommend people read and why um at the moment i'm reading um barack obama's uh autobiography a promised land i love it for people who like the west wing it's just like a episode of the west wing but real and it's so interesting but also just having his personal perspective uh learning more about his work-life balance for example his promise that when he's not traveling he was at the dinner table by 6 30 every night to have dinner with his family um the integrity and um his his motivations uh it's just a very inspiring book highly recommend yeah i've always had immense
01:55:44 respect for him as an individual and as a statesman i can't quite say the same thing for the current incumbent advisor, but so I'll bring on the 21st of January as far as I'm concerned. It can't happen quickly enough, but I'm exposing my thoughts around that because if we use the words integrity, probably not one that I would apply to the current situation, but there we have it. Sort of on the investment arena here, and I'm talking about advice
01:56:14 that you've received, what's both the worst and the best? piece of investment advice that you've ever received today um in terms i've received a couple of really good pieces of advice from my brother um he also happens to work in property and he's a very uh he's been very successful in his work as well and whenever i've really doubted myself it's uh he's been the one that i sort of call and complain to and get advice from so um in in the property sphere um you know his advice is just to you know do your research but at the end of the day you've just got to get started i think i've done a lot of hand wringing and umming and ahhing and he's he's been very successful out of just kind of diving in having
01:57:02 a go and again getting that kind of time in the market which he's now much wealthier than i am I'll just say that. Um, and, and in terms of some of the great, you know, personal career advice, he's given me just, you know, doing what you can. Um, I've gone into situations where I felt way over my head and he said, you know, the only way you're going to get control here is if you just go back, do a bit of work, do the best that you can do and not spending time freaking out about things. And that's something that I, I take with me and, and it served me really well. Um, in terms are the worst piece of investment advice i do um get advice from a lot of skeptics about um how i shouldn't invest in the property market because it's it's going to crash um and i've been getting
01:57:50 advice like that for about 10 years hasn't quite happened yet so um not not sure if i agree um with that kind of advice normally the litmus test for me is uh if anyone's giving me advice and particularly on property and they're telling me not to. I ask them how many properties they've invested in and generally it's zero. So I always sort of question if someone's suggesting that I do or don't do something they haven't done themselves and I really wonder about the value of what they're offering.
01:58:26 Very good point, yep. But okay, now last question on the ambush round, a personal habit that you believe has contributed most to your success to date um yeah I guess just coming back to that idea of humility in your research you know um obviously it's not good to over question every piece of work that you're doing but just knowing that it's always worthwhile to have another person look at your work critique your work um read widely and just always be always be questioning i think abq abq i love that that's awesome final question then to wrap it up but if i gave you a microphone that spoke to every single one of the 7.7 billion
01:59:15 people that are alive in the world today and you had 60 seconds to talk what would you say eliza i just remind people that um understanding concepts in economics understanding the way the property market works. It's not beyond you because it is you. We are the economy. We will have a relationship to real estate and it's important to just try and keep informed where you can because if you don't understand the words in a debate, you're not going to be able to formulate an argument. So I think that's the importance of economics and I'd encourage everyone to stay engaged and ask questions and read widely about it love it love it the really interesting thing and i've mentioned this on the podcast before but ray dalio does a
02:00:09 a really good simple description in a youtube video that lasts 20 minutes on how the economy works uh if listeners haven't listened to that just just check it out uh it puts it in really easy to understand layman's terms to understand recessions depressions uh the whole gambit in a in a very easy to understand language but also graphical uh almost caricature uh story-like descriptions and i'm with you i just love uh once you get your head around it if you're not scared about learning a new language which is basically what we're doing we just learn a new language every time we embark on a new subject. If we know enough, then it can just help our appreciation
02:00:54 of where we're at and where we're heading and what we need to be doing about it. So love your words of wisdom today, Eliza. It's been most enlightening. Really enjoyed it. I'm hoping this is going to be the first of many discussions because you've got a lot of value to add across a whole bunch of areas and you make it very interesting in the discussion around that.
02:01:15 So I appreciate your time today. Thank you so much. That's very kind of you to say, and thank you so much for having me. Thanks, Eliza. Talk soon. Well, Freedom Fighters, how good was that? To get a summary of all this investment gold in the show notes, just email me on hello at khgroup.com.au.
02:01:36 That's H-E-L-L-O at khgroup.com.au. Or check us out at www.bushymartin.com.au forward slash getinvested. I look forward to joining you next week for another episode of the Get Invested podcast. So thanks for listening. And as always, dream as if you live forever and live as if you die tomorrow.
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